LA Angels’ Pitcher Tyler Skaggs Dies At 27
Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs on the mound against the Oakland Athletics during a game Saturday in Anaheim, Calif. Skaggs died on Monday at age 27.
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Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Pitcher Tyler Skaggs has died at age 27, the Los Angeles Angels said Monday. The team did not announce a cause of death.
Skaggs was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at a hotel in Southlake, Texas, police said. He was with the team in Texas to play a series against the Rangers. Monday’s game has been postponed because of his death.
Angels statement on the passing of Tyler Skaggs. pic.twitter.com/6XA2Vu1uWV
— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) July 1, 2019
Skaggs was chosen by the Angels in the 2009 draft and traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was reacquired by the Angels for the 2014 season and had since won 25 games.
MLB.com describes him this way:
“Affable and likable in the clubhouse, Skaggs was a leader among the pitching staff and controlled the music in the clubhouse during Spring Training. He had tattoos on his arm with the state of California and an LA logo, indicating where he grew up.”
OPEC Extends Production Cuts For 9 Months, To Shore Up Oil Prices
Journalists interview oil ministers on the sidelines of the 176th meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries conference on Monday in Vienna.
Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
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Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 5:10 p.m. ET
OPEC and other allied major oil producers have agreed to extend crude oil production cuts for nine months, a move designed to keep oil prices from falling as U.S. production increases and concerns grow about global demand.
Crude oil prices rose after early reports of OPEC’s decision. However, prices are not expected to rise dramatically, as countries that don’t cooperate with OPEC — like the United States — have enough capacity to meet projected growth in demand.
OPEC’s supply cuts, which Russia and several other nonmember countries are also observing, were put in place on a temporary basis at the beginning of 2017. They are credited with helping stop a dramatic multiyear slide in oil prices, and OPEC has opted to extend the cuts repeatedly since then.
Ahead of Monday’s meeting, the organization had been widely expected to extend cuts by at least six months.
The deal technically needs to be approved by participating non-OPEC members in a meeting on Tuesday.
But Russia, by far the most significant non-OPEC partner, has already indicated it is willing to cooperate with production cuts.
Shifting geopolitics
Some of OPEC’s production cuts are outside the cartel’s control.
Iran, a founding member of OPEC, is under pressure from U.S. sanctions after President Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. As a result, Iran has struggled to export its crude oil.
Venezuela, another OPEC member, has also been hit by U.S. oil sanctions, further contributing to reductions in OPEC production.
More broadly, the agreement to keep cuts in place comes during a period of intense geopolitical tension.
Iran continues to object strongly to the influence of regional rival Saudi Arabia over OPEC decisions, particularly as an alliance between Saudi Arabia and Russia holds growing sway over the cartel.
Since these production cuts were agreed upon in late 2016, non-OPEC members like Russia have bolstered the organization’s ability to influence the global oil market. While OPEC controls less than 50 percent of the world’s crude oil production, the expanded coalition, known as “OPEC+,” controls a majority.
Russia, despite not being an OPEC member, accordingly holds significant sway over OPEC decisions. In fact, Monday’s meeting, originally planned for late June, was rescheduled at Russia’s request — creating some controversy within OPEC’s actual membership.
At the meeting, OPEC agreed to formally recognize the new relationship with these non-OPEC allies through a “Charter of Cooperation.” The charter now needs to be approved by Russia and the other OPEC+ members.
Khalid al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s minister of energy, called the charter a “historic document.”
“We are bringing a group of producers permanently into a bigger fence … to sort of work together as a bigger family,” he said.
Iran had vowed to veto the charter, given its concerns over the power wielded by Saudi Arabia and Russia. But after lengthy negotiations it ultimately approved the document, which Falih says contained assurances that the new charter would not supersede the original OPEC agreement.
Meanwhile, the United States — emphatically not a member of OPEC — has been increasing oil production at a rapid clip. The boom in the Permian Basin has made the U.S. the world’s top oil producer.
When OPEC countries cut their production, it boosts the fortunes of members and nonmember partners alike. But it also leaves a larger slice of the market available to others. So when OPEC+ limits production it benefits American producers, albeit unintentionally, helping the U.S. claim a growing share of the global oil market.
Eyeing future demand
Concerns over growing U.S. production are not the only spur for the OPEC+ production cuts. The cartel and its allies are also worried about softening demand growth.
Just last month, OPEC announced it was lowering its expectations for future world oil demand.
The International Energy Agency also projects softening demand growth. The IEA says there are multiple factors, including “a warm winter in Japan, a slowdown in the petrochemicals industry in Europe, and tepid gasoline and diesel demand in the United States.”
But one factor looms large across the world, the IEA says: concerns over the future of global trade.
Economists expect the global economy to slow down over coming months and years. And the tensions between the U.S. and China — among other trade wars — have heightened concerns about an economic cooldown.
Meanwhile, in the long term, changes in transportation — particularly the rise of electric vehicles — and government policies designed to reduce the severity of global climate change could put downward pressure on oil demand.
However, analysts believe demand for oil has not peaked. While demand growth may be slowing down, the global appetite for oil is continuing to increase — just at a slower rate than OPEC and the IEA had previously anticipated.
Courts Order Delay Of Trump Administration’s Health Care ‘Conscience Rights’ Rule
A Trump administration rule has been delayed by courts. It was intended to protect health care workers who refuse to be involved in procedures they object to for moral or religious reasons.
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The federal government’s rule designed to support health workers who opt out of providing care that violates their moral or religious beliefs will not go into effect in July as scheduled. The effective date has been delayed by four months, according to court orders.
The “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care” rule was originally issued in May by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights. It aligns with that office’s religious freedom priorities and would put new emphasis on existing laws that give health care workers the ability to file a complaint with that office if they are forced to participate in medical care that violates their conscience — such as abortion, gender confirmation surgery, and assisted suicide.
As NPR has reported, the rule also expands the type of workers who are able to file this kind of complaint to billing staff and receptionists and anyone else who in any way “assist[s] in the performance” of a procedure.
Complaints of “conscience rights” violations are relatively rare — for a decade, the office would receive an average of one complaint like this each year. Last year, that number jumped to 343. That number is dwarfed by the number of complaints the Office for Civil Rights receives over issues like health privacy or race, sex and age discrimination, which typically number in the thousands.
Several groups sued the federal government over the rule immediately after it was issued. New York state led a coalition of 23 cities and states in one suit, and three jurisdictions in California also sued, including California state and San Francisco. Yet another plaintiff, Santa Clara County in California’s Bay Area, made the case that the rule put patient safety at risk, since it gave health workers the right to opt out of providing care without prior notice — potentially even in an emergency.
“If the rule goes through as it’s written, patients will die,” Santa Clara’s county executive, Dr. Jeff Smith, told NPR last month. “We will have a guaranteed situation where a woman has had a complication of an abortion, where she’s bleeding out and needs to have the services of some employee who has moral objections. That patient will die because the employee is not providing the services that are needed.”
Santa Clara and several other plaintiffs had filed for a preliminary injunction to prevent the rule from going into effect while the legal process played out.
“The federal government actually reached out to all the plaintiffs in all of the different cases and basically said that they didn’t want to have to deal with a preliminary injunction,” says James Williams, county counsel for Santa Clara. He says the government is seeking “summary judgment,” which means the judge could rule in its favor based on the arguments and documents it files with the court. According to Williams the government told the plaintiffs that it “would be willing to stipulate to a delay in the effective date to allow that to happen.”
That new effective date is Nov. 22 — the federal judge in the California cases made that official over the weekend, and in the New York case, the federal judge certified the change on Monday.
HHS made clear in its court filing that by agreeing to this delay, it is not suggesting that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in ultimately blocking the rule. Instead, the agency says, it’s a logistical move.
“In light of significant litigation over the rule, HHS agreed to a stipulated request to delay the effective date of the rule until November 22, 2019,” an HHS spokesperson wrote in a statement to NPR, adding that the delay will “allow the parties more time to respond to the litigation and to grant entities affected by the rule more time to prepare for compliance.”
For plaintiffs, like Santa Clara County, the delay gives some “breathing room” while the lawsuits continue, according to county counsel James Williams.
“The delay is certainly good news because it means that this rule isn’t going to take effect and that the harms are not going to happen now,” Williams says. “But it’s just an interim step, and we’re going to be pressing forward very vigorously with getting a decision and summary judgment to vacate the rule.”
All parties are hopeful that the judges will make their decisions in these cases before the new effective date in November.
